Stan is so exhausted. It has been a most unpleasant day. He has written
thirty-five hundred words on spec for Flatliner, reviewing the new CDs by
Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney. Left to his own devices, he would never have
subjected his ears to such unmitigated crap, but a paycheck is a paycheck.
The bad thing about a gig such as this was that it entailed writing far too
many words for Stan to get by on vitriol alone; he actually had to attempt
to listen to the music before setting out to review it. Not only listen to
it, but actually try to fit the music into some sort of a meaningful
artistic context.
Let’s be perfectly honest about this situation. What critic on God’s
green earth could ever honestly admit to remembering a single solitary cut
from one of Jagger's solo disks? What sort of blindly obsessed fan could
even recall anything that the Stones had done in the last twenty-odd years?
McCartney, on the other hand, you remembered all too well. His songs
stuck to your gut like a rib dinner.

Yes, it has been a hard job and a long and disagreeable day, and it seemed
to Stan like he had been getting more and more jobs of this nature lately.
The logic was as obvious to him as it was odious: Want to write about the
latest artifact from some decrepit old rock star who can’t seem to summon up
the dignity to leave the stage? Here’s an angle; why don’t you hire some
decrepit old rock critic that has been around just about as long as the
aging troubadour in question? Stan Keaton would seem to be the perfect man
to fit that bill. Hell, Stan had been around since back in the days when
Rolling Stone was published on newsprint.

Larry King is off kilter tonight, way off the chart of the official
Journalism Reasonable Standards Guide. It’s not just the fact that his
questions are nebulous, his laugh unusually hollow, and his expression
fraught with disinterest. There's an additional tone in the mix, a ghost
voice in the background. Stan stares at Larry’s trademark suspenders,
following their path from the dips in Larry’s shrunken shoulder blades,
coasting handsomely on down to the trailing headlines at the bottom of the
screen. The suspenders are Chinese red with a black piped outline,
emblazoned with simple yet elegant Aztec symbols, which are embroidered with
golden thread inside of a gold-framed column. Larry's tie plays nicely off
the suspenders, with a similar pattern in contrasting colors. His shirt,
however, is simply hopeless - it's one of those white collared pastel bodied
numbers that the less hip talk show hosts were wearing back in the days when
Mike Douglas first donned a Nehru jacket.

Stan is bleary eyed and nodding. His sight line descends from Larry’s face
to the grain of the carpet and there it remains for several moments,
resting. Stan lets his eyes go out of focus as Larry breaks for commercials.
Ford, Red Lobster, Greta Van Susteren, an anti-smoking PA, Allegra.

There has been a noticeable shift of volume from the speakers. Stan jerks
awake, and for a moment, he feels almost frantic, his eyes darting from one
darkened corner of the room to the next, his ears straining for any sound
beyond the television's drone. Why the panic, Stan? An odd dream? He hears
Susan laughing upstairs and slowly begins to regain his composure.
Somewhat unsure of his footing, Stan struggles from his recliner and
takes the few short steps necessary to reach the refrigerator with its ready
supply of cold Coors Light. He sees nothing inside worth eating.
Returning from the kitchen, Stan is aware that the voices on Larry King Live
have changed. Elizabeth Dole is no longer talking to Larry, and Larry seems
all the happier for it. On the screen, there's a tough-lipped cutie that
must be either a B-list actress or possibly a Canadian lounge singer. Stan
can’t place the woman at first and this really bothers him, as he takes
great pride in his imagined ability to always recognize a face. He stands
rapt by his chair with his beer unopened until Larry calls the woman
Barbara.
Barbara, Barbara, Barbara who? Oh yeah, uh-huh, it’s Barbara Olson,
the conservative blond pundit, that’s who it is, and now that Stan knows
this he can settle back down and begin to relax again. Larry
seems to be much more relaxed as well, his laugh coming more frequently
although none the more appropriately. For some reason, he is rambling on
about Raquel Welch - a grand lady, a great lady. A lady with whom he may
or may not have had some kind of a personal relationship at a crossroads
moment in his past. It's hard to tell precisely what he’s trying to
imply, and Larry likes it like that.
The subject of the moment is supposed to be Gary Condit, the murderin’
congressman - it has been the premiere topic for a few weeks now - but Larry
has lapsed into one of his all too frequent brain farts.
Every so often, Stan is absolutely certain that he is being given a
furtive glance by The King. This causes him to shudder involuntarily. Stan
understands that this is a ridiculous conceit, that Larry is not really
peeking at him from across the airwaves. It sure seems as if he is, though.
A curious sensation. How many other watchers around the world are feeling
this way right now?
Stan had printed off an article earlier this morning, something he had
stumbled across on the Internet. The piece, if it were to be trusted,
detailed a suppressed Justice Department report that implied that Larry King
inspired fear in many otherwise reasonable citizens - male and female, young
and old. There were numerous case studies, dating back as far as February
1993. They documented case studies, gleaned by agency hackers from the
online files of the few remaining Jungian therapists still in practice.
These cases described citizens who had dreamed that Larry had suddenly
materialized in their life at a particularly stressful time or place. Some
claimed to have been given new clarity of mind and vision. Others claimed to
have been stricken by misfortune soon after the vision.

Stan himself is certainly not afraid of Larry King. That would be moronic,
and yet the intellectual part of Stan’s brain is feeling awfully small and
isolated tonight. Stan really does seem to hear a repeated whisper, mixed in
with the static, every time the camera pans away from Larry.

“Be my guest. Be MY guest.”

These
words, of course, are heard only in Stan’s imagination. That cannot be
emphasized strongly enough. He is very tired and he is high. Such a long,
long day. There may or may not be a sound that he is hearing, but if there
is, it exists only as a random frequency mixed within the static. Or if
that’s not the case, the sound is at too low of a volume to make sense of it
anyway.
Maybe there has always been a subliminal message, and he is noticing
it tonight for the first time. ['Watch Greta. Watch Greta']. As he
ponders this possibility, it occurs to Stan that Larry has been on screen
for what seems to be an unusually long stretch tonight. He further realizes
that he has been watching the show for what seems like ages without having
the slightest bit of interest in the content of the conversations. Did CNN
let Larry continue for an extra hour tonight? Sometimes they would do that.
What a waste.
Larry suddenly stares directly into the camera, eyes narrowed, and
Stan swears that Larry mouths the words 'Be My Guest' straight to him.
Okay, this is weird, this is not funny, well maybe it is somewhat
funny, but Stan is not in the mood to put up with the nonsense any longer.
It is definitely his bedtime. Stan sits up in his chair to drain the last of
his beer before rising, when the phone rings on the end table by his side.

“Hello?”

A
mechanical voice. “Please hold. Three, two, one.”

“Woodbridge, Virginia, you’re on the air with the fabulous Barbara Olson”.
Aww Jeez, it's Larry.

“Uh, hello Barbara. I understand that you make a guest appearance on the
upcoming Prince album. What was he like to work with?”

Stan doesn’t know where the hell that question came from, and he definitely
does not want to wait and hear Barbara's response. The phone is returned to
the hook and the television snapped off in a matter of seconds.
Stan stays motionless in the comfort of his beloved recliner and
listens to the sounds of the outside world. Occasional traffic. A ball-peen
hammer.
Stan’s skin is tingling.

In the morning, Stan awakes slowly and recalls that he
had unspooled a strange dream during the night. Something with Larry King in
it. It reminds him of some article he recently read, something about Larry…

Susan
had left the house sometime during the night and covered Stan up with a
fuzzy blue afghan. He is still wedged in his chair and CNN is on without the
sound, but the sun is streaming through the window, and the smell of coffee
drifts in from the kitchen. The details of the dream are a mist receding
away from him. Something about Larry…

Everything has a sharp clear edge this morning. Stan
feels hungry and ambitious. He finds himself in a surprisingly good mood for
so early in the day.

In the kitchen, the radio is softly playing bluegrass.

I was
floating up to heaven when the old alarm clock rang
I was bathing in the sunbeams while a choir of angels sang...